11/3/12

Magician Under the Moonlight

"Rationality, that was it. No esoteric mumbo jumbo could fool that
fellow. Lord, no! His two feet were planted solidly on God's good earth."

- Ellery Queen (The
Lamp of God, 1940)

The last time I looked at Case Closed/DetectiveConan, the volume ended, as per usual, with the opening of a story that
served as a cliffhanger and concludes in the last scheduled release of 2012 –
one of the omens that the year is crawling to its end. But lets lament the
passing of time another time and go on with the review!

On the field of Koshien Stadium, two high-school
baseball teams are batting away in order to impress the scouts scattered among
the throng of enthusiastic baseball fans, but unknown to the players and
onlookers, a dangerous game is being played from the sidelines. A bomber is
sending coded messages and challenges Conan and his friend/rival detective,
Harley Hartwell, to find the bomb before he blows up the entire stadium. More a
suspense than a proper detective story, but the tension is well handled and
loved the story-within-a-story approach. On the field, you have a duel between
two baseball teams that becomes the backdrop for the bomb race on the sideline and they
intertwine as the story progresses.

One quibble: how come neither detectives
noticed the bomber before? He rather stood out on those stairs... clinging to
that suspicious looking bag... hat drawn over his eyes… passively standing with
slumped shoulders between cheering fans... hm. But a fun story. By the way, I
was informed that two of the baseball players were characters from one of Gosho Aoyama's
earlier manga series – 3rd Base 4th.

Next up is a chapter from the
Metropolitan Police Love Story arc, in which the reader, and let's be honest,
pretty much the entire police force, follows the developing relationship
between fellow officers Takagi and Sato. It's Aoyama’s take on the police
procedural and it gives an opportunity to the policemen of these stories to
become more than just background filler. This story is a particular good
example of this.

A rumor is making its way around the
police office, implying that Takagi is going to be dispatched to the Tottori
Prefectural Police for a joint investigation until that particular case is
filed away as solved – which could mean a separation from Sato for a year or
even longer. Meanwhile, he's assigned to investigate the stabbing of an office
worker and his fiancé points to her ex-boyfriend as the murderer, but he has a
watertight alibi for the time of the murder. As a matter of fact, his alibi is
their police colleague Chiba! They're friends and Chiba offered him a place to stay
and they were up all-night watching episodes of Samurai Kid. A good
excuse to rummage around in the private life of Chiba, but I also thought that
the conclusion was done satisfactory – even if it was a tad bit too clever and
complex. Bonus points for actually finding something useful to do for The
Detective Boys while Conan is solving a case.

Finally, we have the main event of this
volume and it's one that could headline any Las Vegas magic show! One of Serena
Sebastian's wealthy relatives, Uncle Jirokichi, came into possession of The
Golden Goddess and The Blue Wonder, a golden figurehead of a woman holding up a
blue aquamarine stone that once protected The Sea Goddess from pirates during
the Age of Discovery, and he want to use it as bait to lure from hiding and
capture the Kaito KID – an elusive and legendary thief with an inexhaustible
bag of tricks.

An artist's rendetion of the suspect.

Challenge accepted, KID proclaims that he
will simply walk up to The Blue Wonder, mounted and displayed on the roof of the
Sebastian Museum, and simply snatching it away! He even promises a public preview
of his coupe-de-grâce and puts in appearance the night before the heist and
how: hovering in mid-air, he can look directly at the statue as he makes his first,
tentative steps towards it and the helicopters that are closing in on him
eliminates the assistance of cables attached to a black balloon or the
buildings besides him – before disappearing in a puff of smoke. You may argue
how workable and believable the explanation is, but it lives up to the premise
and it was brought convincing enough. It's easily one of the best and grandest KID
stories (I have read) to date and loved the interaction between Conan and KID
towards the end. I really hope to find more of these Grand Heist stories in one
of the forthcoming volumes.

The last
chapter sets-up a story that will continue in the next volume and involves a
school ground legends and a haunted desk.

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The Usual Suspect

An Elementary Observation

Welcome to the niche corner, dedicated to the great detective stories of yore and their neo-classical descendants.

Witnesses' Statements

"It's my job to fan the fires of your imagination with tales of doom and gloom; right now I have another chilling tale for you. A tale of danger and mystery..."- Vincent Price (Grandmaster of the Macabre)."The detectives who explain miracles, even more than their colleagues who clarify more secular matters, play the Promethean role of asserting man's intellect and inventiveness even against the Gods."- Anthony Boucher.

"I like my murders to be frequent, gory, and grotesque. I like some vividness of colour and imagination flashing out of my plot, since I cannot find a story enthralling solely on the grounds that it sounds as though it might really have happened. I do not care to hear the hum of everyday life; I much prefer to hear the chuckle of the great Hanaud or the deadly bells of Fenchurch St Paul."- Dr. Gideon Fell (telling it like it is since 1933).